Tag: hobbies

Bird Watching Stories Are Like Fishing Tales

We finally got a couple of videos of a goldfinch! It has been years since I’ve been able to catch a brilliant male goldenrod and it happened last week on the Clear Creek Trail.

In fact, we saw a few birds with the usual idiosyncratic behavior. Goldfinch are rocket fast and hate getting caught on camera.

On the other hand, robins seem to be aware of when they’re being watched and ham it up.

Catbirds also seem to know when they’re being observed and flit away just as I’m getting the camera focused. The one I caught seemed to moon me with its rusty-feathered rump as it took off.

Cardinals also show off and can sit for several minutes preening while you get decent footage.

Birdwatching is a lot like fishing. When you tell others about the whoppers you lost at the lake, it’s a lot like birders telling you about the rarely seen, mysterious birds everyone but experts almost always never see.

And I swear I saw a blue bunting while we were out that day. It flew right in front of me. You should have been there. I haven’t seen a blue bunting in decades!

I almost got the shot.

Guys and Gals Birds

The other day we went birding on the Terry Trueblood Trail. You couldn’t ask for better weather. We saw a lot of birds paired off and checking into the nest boxes or building from scratch.

I don’t know how we got so lucky. We saw male and female red-wing blackbirds, tree swallows, sparrows, and goldfinches.

The difference between the guys and gals is that the female birds tend to be drab. It’s mainly for protection. The females don’t want to attract attention from predators. The males tend to be flamboyant, as if you didn’t know that from your own experience with humans.

The red-wing blackbird male has stunning red and yellow epaulets on its wings. The female is mostly brown.

The tree swallow male is startling bright greenish-blue. The female is a bit duller.

The goldfinch male is a loud yellow while the female is kind of drab olive.

And so on.

Civil or Uncivil Bird Society

We caught sight of several birds engaged in the usual interactions with each other and their prey (in the case of the hawk). Call it civil or uncivil society, it’s natural no matter how you see it.

I’m going to call it a Red-tailed Hawk that caught a gray squirrel and had a tough time managing to eat it or even carry it up a tree.

We saw a male Cardinal nip a sparrow who was dining a little too close to him on a tree. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it was a White-throated Sparrow.

We a Black-capped Chickadee flitting around and a couple of wild turkeys trudging through the snow. The turkeys seemed to be almost encouraging each other at times.

Music Credit for video:

Call to Adventure – Comedy by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1300022

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

2 Person 6 Ball Pass Juggle

Sena and I reached for the sky and tried another two-person juggle pattern with 6 balls. It’s supposedly one of the easier tricks, but we are ordinary jugglers and beg to differ. One YouTube expert juggler says you should be able to stand in one place and juggle 100 cascade throws to do this trick.

Sena finally wore her safety goggles, probably because she got knocked on the head once while we practiced.

The idea is for both partners to do a solid 3 ball cascade pattern and pass one of the balls at regular intervals. Believe it or not, the slowest pace is to count “1, 2, pass” so that you throw the pass after two right hand tosses in your cascade. Both partners pass with the right hand to each other’s left hand.

That was difficult for both of use because we’re used to counting every throw, including the left-hand throws. You have to skip counting the left-hand throw and starting counting with only the right-hand throws. There are faster variations of this trick, including passing every throw!

We drop a lot of balls, needless to say. But we have a lot of fun!

Juggling with New Safety Goggles

I got new safety goggles the other day. They’re to protect me when I juggle. They’re made by Sattron and Sena got them on Amazon at a good price for 3 pairs. They fit over my eyeglasses. These were my old eyeglasses, which I’ve since replaced with brand new ones. I’m still a little nervous about wearing the goggles over those.

The goggles come with a cleaning cloth and the bows are adjustable. They adjust at the temples up and down through 15 degrees (up, intermediate, and down). It’s hard to move them. You have to really crank them. I don’t think they make that much difference. The length adjustment is a little quirky. You pull them out or push them back in. It’s a ratchet setting adjustment. The soft silicone nose pads will leave smudges on your glasses.

They’re anti-fog, anti-UV, but unfortunately not anti-drop. On the other hand, when a juggling ball drops on my head, I’ll be protected because they’re impact resistant.

The Gray Catbird Rusty Rump Mystery

I looked into the mystery of the gray catbird’s rusty rump. I mentioned the rusty colored feathers under its tail feathers in yesterday’s post. For some reason the underside of its tail feathers looks a little messy. I was able to get more video evidence about what might be the cause.

The catbird looks fastidious. That may be misleading. Scientific observation reveals what is really going on.

This is probably also the origin of an old saying. I think it was Plato who said, “Never stand under a bird.”

Terry Trueblood Birds Show Off in the Spring

Just about any time of year is a great opportunity to walk the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area. The birds are busy competing for mates and nesting spaces.

The nest boxes for the tree swallows are up. Already, vacancies are few. Their iridescent feathers are dazzling.

The music in the first part of the video is a piece called “There Are Chirping Birdies In My Soul” by Reed Mathis.

In the second part of the video, we let the birds themselves make the music. The birds don’t just show off; they sound off. All the birds are singing—except for the one killdeer for some reason. I managed to save a few clips of them singing their songs. They are in the last minute or so of the YouTube video. The first is the tree swallow. The next is the red-wing blackbird. Last is the song sparrow.

You’ll need to crank the volume to hear them. The tree swallows have a subtle trilling chirp. The male red-winged blackbirds have a distinctive call that probably sounds very familiar to most of us. We also saw and heard a song sparrow, a first for us.

Familiar Backyard Birds and One Sort of Familiar

We were bird watching the other day and saw a few birds we definitely recognized. One of them we puzzled about but finally decided was a sparrow.

The Red-Bellied Woodpecker is familiar. We think it was a male. The Blue Jay is still interesting because when it’s not in the sunlight it looks like what it really is—a blackbird. When we first saw it, the bird looked sort of grayish black. Finally, it turned just right and its feather bent the light into the familiar blue color. The Northern Cardinal is instantly recognizable, especially the male. They like to sit a long time, which is great for getting pictures.

The last bird looks like a sparrow but the tail seems longer and the bill is narrower. The breast is not streaked. It has head feathers which stick up. It resembles a female house sparrow, but it seems a bit larger than that. We looked around the web to try and identify the sparrow-like bird we saw.

We wonder if it might be a Cassin’s Sparrow. Although it would be out of its range since it’s found mostly in the southwest United States, Cassin’s Sparrow has been known to wander.

On the other hand, it’s not listed on the websites we saw featuring sparrow species seen in Iowa.

I think the reason it had a greenish breast was because it was reflecting the surrounding tree leaves. We’re calling it a Cassin’s Sparrow for now, but if you know better, shout it out.

Can anybody help us identify this mystery bird?

Claw Catch Circus Juggle

I found another juggling trick I might be able to handle. It’s the claw catch. I saw a number of YouTube demonstrations. As usual, I tend to confuse them.

I slapped the balls down instead of catching them. And I think I’m going to need safety goggles or just quit wearing my eyeglasses when I juggle. I miss a few throws and the ones I do get look pretty wild. That’s how I get my exercise.

The claw catch really does look better if you use both left- and right-hand throws. I hope my left shoulder holds up. Being ambidextrous will help me do continuous right and left claw catches—maybe.

Sena Making Progress in Juggling

This is a progress report on Sena’s progress in juggling. She has been dedicated to practicing 2 or 3 minutes every other day. Frankly, she does more than that on some days.

She has been trying to move up to doing a 4-ball toss and catch. She thought she got it yesterday, and for a while so did I, even as I filmed it. The practice routine is to toss the balls 1-2-3-4 and catch. We thought she nailed it.

Then I looked at the video clips in slow motion. She wasn’t getting to 4 but she was getting to 3 more consistently. And part of what fooled us is that she’s now beginning to be ambidextrous. She can start the cascade from both her right and left side now!

Sena suggests I change the title of my YouTube section on juggling. As of yesterday, I changed it from Ugly Juggling to Ordinary Juggling. This distinguishes it from all the jugglers from whose videos I learn so much. They are extraordinary.